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There are clear-cut number one and two options in the NBA Finals. Jayson Tatum and Luka Doncic are both battling it out to be the best player on the court. On the other hand, Kyrie Irving and Jaylen Brown get to duke it out to see who the best secondary star is. Obviously, it looks like the master of handles and shiftiness has got this in the bag. At first glance, his veteran acumen mixed with unreal flexibility to contort his body snatches ankles and gets wins. But, Bill Simmons posits that the the Boston Celtics star could just be better than the Dallas Mavericks guard.
Who's better: Kyrie Irving or Jaylen Brown?
Biases kept to the side, Bill Simmons was being objective when he made the claim before the NBA Finals. He looked back and noticed how Jaylen Brown looked so much better than Kyrie Irving in the past few seasons. The avid spectator of this league all the way up to the Celtics-Mavericks clash may even be up to something when he was making the contrast, via The Bill Simmons Podcast presented by The Ringer.
“I think if you ask the normal person, like who's a better offensive player they'll be like Kyrie 100 times out of 100, he's way better than Jaylen. It's like, is he? Jaylen for the last four years of the playoffs is averaging more points than he is, and he's a better shooter than Kyrie is at least from field goal percentage, it's at least arguable that he could put up similar production as Kyrie,” he said.
Kyrie Irving had a stronger outing with the Mavericks throughout the regular season. He put up 25.6 points per contest while knocking down his outside shots with a 41.1% clip. This offensive production dwarfed Jaylen Brown who just gave the Celtics 23 points a night while only having an outside stroke that sees the bottom of the net 35.4% of the time.
Celtics star turns the jets on leading to the NBA Finals
With these numbers, Bill Simmons made the claim that the Celtics player has picked up his production and even contributed more to the Celtics such that they got into the NBA Finals.
“Jaylen's really good. I just want to start there. I think there is a chasm between the people who talked about the Celtics versus the people who actually watched them, like Jaylen in the playoffs for three rounds now he's 25 points a game, he's shooting 54%, and he's shooting 37% from three, and he's plus 6.8 when he plays. Kyrie's averaging 23 a game, and he's shooting 49 %,” he added.
This NBA Finals matchup will be about which duo is able to come out on top. The Celtics duo with Jayson Tatum have been more well-rounded on both sides of the floor. They are both two-way stars. Luka Doncic and Irving have been more lethal on offense and leave their defenders too gassed to play defense. It's a strategy that got them to eliminate a stacked Los Angeles Clippers squad, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Anthony Edwards.
But, Simmons posits that the dominance that the Celtics exhibited will be enough to get them the Larry O'Brien trophy when it's all said and done.
“I think we've hit this point based on that last series where people are like Luka and Kyrie man, it's unstoppable. There's no two like this in the league. Tatum and Brown have been pretty good for a long period of time and they just went 76 and 20 you know the entire season,” he concluded.
Who's coming out on top between these two?
